Guild Wars 2

to answer your question: I do not

Currently I am playing a “phoenix build” which I came up with goofing around. Its basically a staff glass cannon 30/10/0/0/30. It utilizes lava font when downed, arcane brilliance and elemental surge.

In downed state I deal damage for 10 secs while not taking any for 3 in a large area (longer fire fields and larger staff AoE). my targets are constantly burning and when i get up(and i always do) and something is still alive > arcane brilliance, staff fire 4 … and then do what you want.

due to a lot of modifiers you get quite good damage when downed- at least enough to kill anything that is left from your inital attack.

+ 10% for fire attunement
+ 5% from weapon
+ 5% from runes
+ 10% against burni targets
+ 33% because of trait (should be 50 like necro and thief)
+ 20% from food (which also doubles your donwed health)
+ 20% against low health targets

Skills are arcane wave, acane shield, purging flames/signet of air.

this build really got me back into my ele.
only drawback is the lack of good condi cleanse but we are talking about solo pve here anyway.

the build really takes off against 2+ mobs – and its great for farming

So you came back into your ele to play … dead ?

I think it’s more like making use of all the tools at his disposal. There’s nothing wrong with going down, as long as you’re not defeated.

Zelyhn.8069:

So you came back into your ele to play … dead ?

Yes

I played a Lot of warrior and guard… So when i returned and didn’t adjust my playstyle i died quite a few emberassing Deaths. so i made a Habit Out of it. Works very well except for toxic kraits.

Go D/F.

I used to play scepter and although it’s fun, Most of the DPS is loaded into Dragon’s Tooth and aside from the opener, successfully landing a second Tooth without being mangled by the enemy is quite difficult. Then when you switch attunements Fire goes on cooldown which means you have to start the next fight in a different attunement which is pretty annoying because really Dragon’s Tooth is where it’s at.

When I switched I noticed an immediate boost in survivability. That knockdown from Gale + Obsidian skin should get you through most veterans without a scratch, not to mention there’s a daze from Comet and 8s of chill to kite with.

The damage output is also much more consistent. Sure you can burst with your firefield combo’s but the majority is from Lightning Whip which has a decent 300 range and hits fast.

Okay, okay. Let me stop you right there. If you’re running around in Lion’s Arch with your Elementalist in berserker gear, then duh; you’re going to die. The game right now, is attempting to steer people away from zerging and going overly glassy. As such, using old methods are not going to work as well.

I know not everyone runs extremely squishy. I’ve been running Cleric’s gear recently and it works very well in PvE, WvW, and PvP. Now mind you, it’s not going to save you against insane damage, but it provides greate healing and steady damage that will keep you alive. I’ve also been pairing it with Sigils of Battle and Life. When I get my 25 stacks of Life, I swap it out for Impact. It seems to work really well with dual daggers.
My build also focuses highly around boon duration. So if you’re doing well with blasting your fire fields, you’ll have plenty of might to fill in that small gap in power.

I can cure most conditions with it (30 water), do great damage, and out.heal most damage.

I play standard 0/10/0/30/30 D/D with the mix of PVT/Knight/(Cavalier/Celestial Acc)

with 16K HP, 1600 Toughness %36 crit (56 with perma fury) %70 Crit Damage during the event other then poison cloud didn’t die even for once.

I can Lightning Wip for 1.5K, 8K Fire Grabs, 8K Churning Earth so I think my damage doesn’t suffer that much also.

Going full Berserker is not a good idea for this event.

In every possible PvE situation berserker (and assassin) gear is better. Due to its synergistic power it is stronger by a large margin.

Mark my word: there is absolutely no reason why someone should choose any other gear type.

If you wish to have more defensive possibilities then work on your traits, utilities, and weapons. But gear must be optimal for direct damage. This is because the marginal defense return from switching traits is drastically better than that of switching gear.

Edit
I have one hour flood control so I must edit this post to reply to the following message by Xyonon.3987.
Do not use staff!
Staff is generally underpowered, un-synergistic, and has little use unless you are a top level player with an adequate party.

Staff is pretty much everything you want in pve teamplay, dagger dagger is solo, focus offhand for reflection.

DD means you are fast, deal good damage, I personally do not like the playstyle but it seems to be the best solo equip.

Staff is what you almost must use in fotm / dungeons. Huge fields, simply awesome skills, much cc, reflection, tons of damage, fire and water fields, finishers, evades. I don’t think there is anything that can outdamage a glass cannon fire ele. The damage is truly amazing. Also it’s safe with up to 1200 range, but still stay in close combat for allies buffs.

Zelyhn.8069:

In every possible PvE situation berserker (and assassin) gear is better. Due to its synergistic power it is stronger by a large margin.

Mark my word: there is absolutely no reason why someone should choose any other gear type.

If you wish to have more defensive possibilities then work on your traits, utilities, and weapons. But gear must be optimal for direct damage. This is because the marginal defense return from switching traits is drastically better than that of switching gear.

Sadly though, when doing zerg events the bearbows, GS mesmers and staff guardians scale up the mobs while doing poor DPS and dilute your contribution so much it really is so demoralizing to be zerker. I swap out the zerker+scholar armor for PVT and boon duration and only keep zerker trinkets when I go Living Story.

Oh and actually if you take PVT and stack damage traits, you can actually do more damage than zerker 0/10/0/30/30 but it’s generally harder to do the former than the latter.

lol @ using staff’s “evades”. if you need evades just run any other weapon set with an energy sigil. especially with conjures you don’t completely kitten your DPS when you swap attunements (unlike staff). this is one of the reasons why staff is one of the hardest ele builds to play against bosses like lupi, since you have limited dodges and swapping attunements for energy proc kills your DPS.

I would still suggest staff in open world events though, meteor shower is OP tagging.

for running with weaker pugs I would suggest one of the dagger/focus builds, because they have a good amount of inbuilt defensive utility (swirling winds, obsidian flesh, magnetic shield etc) and are independent of conjures/attune camping, although staff is great for lazy players.

Tom.8029:

Okay, okay. Let me stop you right there. If you’re running around in Lion’s Arch with your Elementalist in berserker gear, then duh; you’re going to die. The game right now, is attempting to steer people away from zerging and going overly glassy. As such, using old methods are not going to work as well.

I know not everyone runs extremely squishy. I’ve been running Cleric’s gear recently and it works very well in PvE, WvW, and PvP. Now mind you, it’s not going to save you against insane damage, but it provides greate healing and steady damage that will keep you alive. I’ve also been pairing it with Sigils of Battle and Life. When I get my 25 stacks of Life, I swap it out for Impact. It seems to work really well with dual daggers.
My build also focuses highly around boon duration. So if you’re doing well with blasting your fire fields, you’ll have plenty of might to fill in that small gap in power.

I can cure most conditions with it (30 water), do great damage, and out.heal most damage.

Umm… Why not? My baby ele has been running around LA to collect ransom from baddies since level 15. And she is 32 now

And she’s wearing a pure Power set, still hitting like a wet noodle (compared to her zerker big sis) but I guess it’s enough to compare with a full cleric colleague.

ThiBash.5634:

Apart from dodging well and using protection boon/heals…

….the Earth Elemental elite summon. It tanks like a pro, gathers aggro like it offended their mothers and can take more hits than current day music charts.

/agreed

Did a search for “blind” in this thread and got no hits. There are two in scepter dagger.

Water ele will give a full heal.

Yes Earth ele is good at agro, very sturdy, and will take on one if not two npcs and allow the use of single target on whatever npcs are left. Then aoe them all at the same time. We are talking Pve after all.

Pick one target and keep that targeted. Place aoe so all are hit. The first target should be the weakest first. Take ranged first though. When first is down, tab target the next npc weakest or lowest health bar, but save the veterans and champs for last regardless. Rinse and repeat.

Some mobs are just difficult. Hyleks for example have a nasty knockdown and an immobilize too. Our primary defense is our speed and mobility. If we are stuck, that makes it tough. But, condition removal will solve lots of the types of attacks different mobs have. One minute you think you are fine and the next dead and you wonder what happened. Chances are good it was conditions.

Rotate thru all the attunements and use the skills. Direct Dps is the not the be all, end all. It’s sexy lol, but basics count and add up.